Do you remember when you read your first blog? I do. It was about five and half years ago when a co-worker recommended I check out this “really funny” blog that chronicled the life of a then twenty-something guy living in the Big Apple. I won’t reveal the blog here, because it’s slightly NSFW (that’s blog speak for “Not Suitable For Work”). But the recommendation turned out to be a good one, because it’s a blog that I still read regularly.

Did I know what a blog was back then? I think I had a general idea. But I remember recommending the aforementioned blog to friends and some of them being a little confused by the concept. It seems strange to think about now, but blogging really didn’t become the phenomenon it is today until the turn of the century. While journalists and writers began experimenting with “web logs” in the mid to late nineties, blogging really took off after Pyra Labs launched the free blogging service Blogger (which is now owned by Google) in August 1999 (Peter Merholz first coined the term “blog” in early 1999, when there were 23 known blogs in existence).

According to eMarketer, nearly 49 percent of U.S. Internet users (that’s 96.6 million people) read blogs monthly, while 14 percent are themselves bloggers. These percentages are expected to rise to 58 percent and 17 percent, respectively, by the year 2013. Statistics aside, consider the proliferation of blogging within pop culture. The popular teen sitcom Gossip Girl is centered on the show’s fictional gossip blog that shares the show’s title. Last summer’s film Julie & Julia is based on the true story of Julie Powell, who recorded an attempt to cook through Julia Childs’ Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a 2002 blog (The Julie/Julia Project actually resulted in a book deal and 2005 publication). Heck, some bloggers have even become celebrities themselves (Perez Hilton, anyone?).

So what has the explosion of the blogosphere meant to the world of local search? Well, a lot (way more than I’m able to elaborate on here, actually). Technorati says the majority of today’s bloggers are “hobbyists,” who say they blog for fun. With these kinds of bloggers sharing their consumer experiences with like-minded individuals (or for anyone to read, for that matter), it’s imperative for companies to monitor what is being said about them and their brands. Blogging has also, at the risk of sounding rather obvious, created a whole new way for marketers to directly reach specific groups of consumers.

Though the blogosphere could still be considered to be in its infancy, the marketing opportunities it provides are nearly limitless.  Bottom line: Get to know consumers by reading their blogs, even if some of them may be a little NSFW.